Monthly Archives: October 2014

Protect the land of life

First Nation chiefs to stage Site C showdown

B.C. Hydro is facing an opposition by the First Nation people to its $8 billion Site C project, which is to build a dam and 1,100-megawatt hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia. The former deputy Indian affairs minister Harry Swain claims that this project would put a huge impact on their fishing opportunities and practices for the First Nations representatives. The decision on the approval for this project is to be made on October 22nd by the federal government.

Personally, the land of First Nation should be respected, as it is said in the Canada’s highest court, “the Crown can only justify the infringing on Aboriginal title lands by demonstrating both compelling and substantial government objective and it must not be outweighed by adverse effects on the Aboriginal interest.” According to the article, this project does not satisfy most conditions mentioned above. As BC is considered as “Indian Land,” and people respect their traditional land, it would be more efficient to come up with smaller scale projects that have less effects on people and land, and meet the needs.

It is easy to destroy the nature and tradition to replace them with new technologies, however people have to realize that they are something that would hardly or never come back once we lose.

Should Japan ban smoking before 2020 or not?

Tokyo, Japan is hosting the Olympics in 2020. According to the Japan Times News, Japanese Government is considering curb smoking by enforcing bun at the restaurant and similar public places before 2020 to engage in the free smoking policy by the International Olympics Committee. U.K and Russia who were the hosting countries of the Olympics for the last 2 games also had either banned or some kind of restriction for smoking.

However, there is a high possibility that this policy will face the resistance of Japan Tobacco Inc. (JPI) whose largest shareholder is the Finance Ministry of Japan. Also if the government has decided to apply this new policy, it would cause a huge decrease in the total tax revenue of the country, because the total tax revenue estimated by the ministry in the fiscal year ending in March 2015 is $456 billion and $8.4 billion of them; which is about 2% of the total revenue are from tobacco.

On the other hand, there is a shift in a preference to non-smoking in Japan. JTI announced that the number of smokers in Japan fell to 47% since 1965, when the last Olympics was held in Tokyo. The reason behind this may be the fact that about 7,000 people in the country die annually by smoking and the second hand smoke.

Although this decrease in the revenue may be a big damage for Japanese government, it is a good opportunity for the government to think what is more important between the health of the people or the money and how the future of the country should be as the hosting country of the Olympic games.

This car doesn’t need gasoline, neither a driver.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the CEO of Tesla as known as the company with its fully electronic luxury car line, Elon Musk said in the interview that there is a high possibility of fully autonomous electronic car with Teslas’s own autonomous driving technology being produced in next 5 to 6 years. In addition to this, Tesla is estimating to start beginning free cash flow in the 3^rd quarter of 2015. Mr. Musk says that he will be able to pay $5 millions for the planned giga-factory without any other borrowing. Clearly company is on the path toward the success.

The car with Tesla’s own autonomous technology and without significant competitors, the price is expected to be comparatively high. This raises a question, what is the demand for this car going to be? Would people be willing to pay that much of money for an autonomous car?

The question may be already answered looking at the demands for the previous models from Tesla. Mr. Musk says that the current demand for Model S with its price of $71,000 and up has not been a problem and there is even a waiting list for it.

Model S Copyright: Tesla Motors

It is interesting to see how this company is handling its value proposition pretty well and attracting many customers all over the world.

Sustainability is the new key.

I believe everybody has heard a word sustainability at least once before.

UBC cares about sustainability, but so does the world.

Sustainability has been a new key word for the successful business.

According to Forbes, the companies in different field that invested in producing sustainable products have been successful in their businesses.

Patagonia… apparel

Encouraging customers to sign up to their Common Threads Initiative and commit buy only what they need. As a result of this campaign, they are opening additional stores and its revenues are expected to increase by 15% annually.

Samsung…electronic

The television with Samsung’s smart evolution technology can update software and add functionally into the existing television. No need to replace the old television with the new one. Successfully, the company has been keeping its position in the top TV brand on Interbrand’s 2013 best global brands list and the number eight brand overall.

IKEA…furniture

IKEA ran a campaign encouraging selling the second hand furniture on Facebook base flea market. This campaign helped prevent wasting the resource that could be reused or recycled. Campaign end up successfully that all of the items sold out, and IKEA itself increased its sale for the new furniture.

Customers’ attentions are given to products with longer product lifecycles through improved quality, durability, and maintenance, including repair, upgrading, and reuse, according to Dr. Kim Cooper, and this is what all sustainability is about. These sustainable products would be a really good investment for the companies for the new business opportunity.